Featured Artist of the Month : Pamela H. Viola Oct. 2014 | TheArtList - Art & Photo Calls for Visual Artists and Photographers.

Pamela H. Viola

Washington DC

Pamela H. Viola is a photography-based and mixed media visual artist. Born and raised in New York and New Hampshire. She currently lives in the Washington, DC area and maintains residences in New York City and New England. Informally trained in a wide range of artistic disciplines from photography to painting and printmaking, Ms. Viola has studied with a wide variety of teachers including Jay Maisel, Henry Horenstein, Joe McNally (photography) and Pat Adams (painting, printmaking). Additionally, Pamela had a fifteen-year career in the film industry working alongside directors Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and Barry Sonnenfeld. Varieties of artistic influences throughout her life have led to diverse and unique bodies of work. Ms. Viola is represented by Hisaoka Gallery at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, DC. Her most recent solo exhibit, Having A Ball, was held in November 2013 at the Hillyer Art Space in Washington, DC. Pamela’s work is currently on view at Dulles International Airport’s Gateway Gallery in the exhibit, The Nation’s River. Pamela’s artwork is regularly featured in television shows such as “Scandal” and “Revenge”, publications including Art Business News, Elan Magazine and Northern Virginia Magazine, and is held in public, private, and corporate collections worldwide.

How and when did you start creating art?

Like many artists, I made art as a child. In high school I fell in love with photography and that has continued to be the basis for my work. After years of working in the film industry, I returned to making art full-time about six years ago.

What media and genres do you work in?

I am a photographer and mixed media artist, often using encaustics. In recent years I have focused on the landscape, but have become more interested in surrealism and abstraction.

Who or what are your influences?

Photography is uniquely suited to capturing a straight representation of a scene, but there is an equally strong tradition of using photographs to portray the world of dreams, memory, and conceptual ideas. I am inspired by both pictorialism and surrealism and I would say that my work spans the divide between photography and painting. Sometimes the work retains a great deal of what is commonly considered a photograph - representation of reality, but lately my work is morphing into surreal assemblage. Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter have always inspired me.

What was your inspiration for Keeper of the Key?

Generally I don’t begin with a concept and create towards it. I usually begin with an abstract background that I have made as I did in the case of “Keeper of the Key”. Since this was intended to be one of my “Character Studies” I next built my character. I started with the head and created her wardrobe from photographs of bones and a dancer’s antique tutu. Our character needed a hat so a photograph of twine was brought in. Next, she needed something to focus on and balance the composition. The “tower” was an image of a little piece of metal I liked the shape of. I repeated the shape and gave it to our character to hang as a key from her belt. Smaller shapes, textures and marks were layered in adding depth and completing the composition. My goal is having the viewer conjure the details of the “character’s” story based on their own imagination, dreams and memories.

Describe your creative process?

Through the portals of dreams and memories there exist curiosities. Permitting myself to be still and listen to the semi-conscious mind, stories and ideas present themselves. Often to the conscious, rational mind they make no sense. As I assemble random bits and bobs, this way and that, a framework for meaning unfolds. As elements juxtapose one another within the frame connections are suggested, giving rise to deeper understanding of our human joys, hurts, insecurities, hopes and indecision. It is often in retrospect that I fully understand the emotional components revealed. I begin making images with a camera. What I do with those photographs is not always the same. The images I make of iconic Washington, DC landmarks often remain relatively “photographic”. Recently I have been using multiple exposures in this area of my work. It is my conceptual/surrealist work that lends itself to mixed media. I begin without expectation, yet guided by a strong sense of composition. Works are first developed digitally in a painterly fashion by layering images and textures. Once printed, handmade marks, pastels and encaustic are added.

What are you working on currently?

I am working on two projects. The first is a series of “Character Studies”. These are whimsical fictional characters that are formed and flow from combining images, textures and handmade marks. As the stage and framework coalesce a story develops. The other is called “Curiosities” which came out of a desire to reconnect with family heirlooms, letters and memories.

What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

Focusing more on mixed media and expanding the storytelling aspects of my work. Other goals include increasing my visibility and associations with galleries and art advisors.